Cryptic combat against competing microbes is a costly component of parental care in a digger wasp
Section snippets
Animals
Beewolf females were obtained either from field populations in Erlangen or Würzburg, Germany, or from a laboratory population kept at the University of Regensburg (F1 generation of field-caught females). They were individually housed in observation cages (26:22 °C day:night, 14:10 h light:dark cycle; for details see Strohm & Linsenmair 1994/1995) and were provided with honeybee workers as prey and honey ad libitum. The observation cages allowed us to monitor the provisioning process as well as
Fungal Infestations and Larval Survival
Beewolf offspring had a significantly higher mortality until cocoon spinning in brood cells in which the prey bee was infested by mould fungi than in uninfested brood cells (generalized Wilcoxon survival analysis: , P = 0.025; Fig. 1a). Larvae feeding and developing on embalmed bees had a significantly higher survival than larvae developing on not embalmed bees (generalized Wilcoxon survival analysis: , P = 0.042; Fig. 1b). The embalming significantly reduced fungal growth on the
Prey Embalming as Parental Investment
Our results clearly demonstrate that fungal infestations of the larval provisions pose severe threats to P. triangulum by significantly increasing larval mortality. Additionally, individuals surviving despite their provisions becoming mouldy might have a decreased body size and reduced reproductive success (Strohm and Linsenmair, 1997b, Strohm, 2000). It can be concluded that fungal infestation of larval provisions has highly detrimental effects on beewolf fitness. Consistent with earlier
Acknowledgments
We are grateful to Katja Weißel and Johannes Penner for their valuable support and to Mr Mulzer for tending the bees.
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2013, Advances in the Study of BehaviorCitation Excerpt :This social immune response has been shown to be costly. Beewolves were forced to upregulate their production of hydrocarbons by being provided with extra bees to prepare (Herzner et al., 2011). As this species shows no postoviposition parental care, the majority of the cost of reproduction is determined by the hunting and preservation of bees, the first of which was eliminated by providing females with paralyzed bees at the entrance to their nests.
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